A Dark and Secret Magic by Wallis Kinney – Review

Published: October 8, 2024

Publisher: Alcove Press

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 314 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
A warm, spellbinding tale about a witch and the secrets her coven has been keeping from her, with echoes of the classic Hades and Persephone story, in the tradition of Practical Magic and Witch of Wild Things.

Hecate Goodwin, Kate to her friends, has curated the perfect life as a hedge witch, living in a secluded cottage with only a black cat for company. She spends her days foraging herbs from the Ipswich forest, gardening, and creating tinctures to sell at the apothecary she owns. Most evenings pass without her speaking to another human being, an arrangement she quite prefers.

Kate’s solitude is thrown into disarray when her older sister, Miranda, reaches out and asks her to host their coven’s annual Halloween gathering. The day marks the beginning of the new year for witches and is also Kate’s birthday. The pressure from her coven to make the evening memorable mounts as the event draws near. To complicate things further, a handsome man from Kate’s past turns up at her cottage, asking for sanctuary. It is Kate’s duty as a hedge witch to honor this request, much to her dismay. Matthew Cypher is no ordinary lost soul–he’s a practitioner of forbidden magic who’s tricked Kate once before, and her guard is up.

As she juggles Matthew’s arrival and the preparations for Halloween, Kate comes across an old tome shrouded in dark magic. She is horrified when she realizes the blood-red inscription is written in familiar handwriting: her recently deceased mother’s. Afraid to even touch the dark magic her mother secretly studied, Kate can turn only to Matthew for help. Her idealized memory of her mother begins to distort, and as she and Matthew grow closer, Kate has to reevaluate whom she can really trust.

A Dark and Secret Magic is a celebration of the Halloween season and a love letter to anyone who drinks pumpkin spice in August and carries the spirit of a witch inside their heart all year long.

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If you are looking for the PERFECT witchy read for Halloween, then you need to pick up A Dark and Secret Magic. This cozy tale has an amazing blend of romance, forbidden magic, and family secrets that kept me turning pages late into the night. And don’t even get me started on the amazing atmosphere and the food descriptions!

This story follows Hecate Goodwin, hedge witch of the Atlantic Key coven in Ipswich Massachusetts. Hecate, or Kate, as she prefers, is preparing for her 31st birthday – a significant day for these witches as they fully commit to their magical areas of expertise. This is also the first Samhain without her mother and her older sister Miranda has just asked her to prepare the family home for the coven party. She’s also having disturbingly vivid dreams about the recently deceased warning her of someone called the King Below. On top of all this, a handsome hexan man from her past has just shown up on her doorstep and asked for Sanctuary.

Kate is a truly delightful character who does a great deal of work behind the scenes to care for her fellow Atlantic Key witches and even the non-magical residents of Ipswich. She helps her friend Rebecca run an apothecary called the Raven & Crone – super witchy! Despite her skill at healing and navigating the forests, Kate doesn’t believe she’s a powerful witch, something that she will soon find is not true at all. Matthew Cypher on the other hand is the heir to the Pacific Gate coven, a group of magic users that don’t forbid any practice – even those that one might consider ‘evil’. Matthew himself is a necromancer and Kate is understandably quite distrustful of his motives when he first arrives. The longer she spends with him, the more she begins to realize that he might not actually be a bad guy and the spark they had so long ago might still be there. 

I personally loved the romantic aspect of this story. It’s just plain ol’ delightful and made me happy even though some parts were predictable. The overall cozy, autumnal atmosphere of the story is really what sold me though. There’s baking, pumpkin carving, prepping for Samhain celebrations. It sets up the most idyllic imagery of late October (my favorite month!) and it was exactly what I needed when I picked it up! My only complaint would be that the conflict with the King Below wrapped up very quickly and it hardly felt like a conflict at all. Other than that I totally loved this and can’t wait to see what else this author releases in the future!